


The End Is Where We Start From

by Kaerra



Series: Those Who Drabble In The Dark Collection [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Loss, Healing through expressing grief, Hugs, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24333757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaerra/pseuds/Kaerra
Summary: Felix has never gotten to say goodbye to any of his family on his terms before they left him for good. Can he finally start to let them go through the healing power of a hug?Prompt for hugs for Those Who Drabble In The Dark
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic & Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Series: Those Who Drabble In The Dark Collection [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756777
Comments: 12
Kudos: 57
Collections: Those Who Drabble in the Dark





	The End Is Where We Start From

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a line from one of my favorite poets, TS Eliot. Thank you to roxyryoko for brainstorming ideas with me that led to this ficlet (it grew too long to be a true drabble, sorry!). And a huge thank you to Candi for all of the amazing feedback and support.

The last time Felix hugged his mother, he was eight years old, and annoyed when she’d snagged him from behind before he could run outside into the snow. He’d wanted to get a head start on making his fort defensible when Glenn inevitably pelted him with snowballs.

But his mother’s arms were warm, and she was always soft and loving and smelled like lavender, and his irritation evaporated. Felix allowed her to put him into his wool coat and gloves and gave her a big hug despite the imposition, and headed outside.

Four days later, she was gone, struck down by a disease no one else in the family had gotten.

Glenn had wrapped his arm around Felix’s shaking shoulders at her funeral, while their father stood apart, stiff and cold.

* * *

The last time Felix hugged his brother, he didn’t want the contact, because Glenn had grabbed him at the last minute of his departure to Fhirdiad, face split into a grin.

“Hey kid, don’t look so glum. Practice hard so you’ll get more than two touches on me in our next spar.”

Twelve year old Felix had scowled and crossed his arms, and Glenn had only been able to give him half of a hug before their father called him off.

“We can’t keep King Lambert waiting, boys! Finish your goodbyes now!”

Glenn had stepped back, and right when Felix began to think he should hug him in earnest, Glenn’s face got serious.

“It might be a while before I see you again. Look after Father, would you? Make sure he doesn’t work too hard trying to pretend he’s not missing mother.”

“Yeah, okay,” Felix said. “I’ll make sure Ingrid doesn’t hurt herself trying to take down Sylvain or I with a lance, too.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing a blush creep up his brother’s face—the same pale coloring that Felix had, although Glenn’s hair was deep black, like their mother’s had been.

“Thanks, kid. I’ll be seeing you.”

The next time Felix saw Glenn was a year later, when his body came back in a coffin, shattered shield and broken sword adorning the lid.

* * *

The last time Felix hugged his father was the day of Glenn’s funeral.

They’d stood together, watching Glenn’s coffin laid into the earth. Felix hadn’t been able to articulate any of his feelings since learning of Duscur, it had all been too much for him to grasp—Glenn’s death, King Lambert murdered alongside him, and only Dimitri alive. His father looked more grim and distant than Felix had ever seen him, and this was the first time Rodrigue had touched him since Glenn’s things had returned to Fraldarius.

They’d walked home from the family graveyard in silence, until Felix worked up the bravery to ask his father what had been on his mind ever since they’d heard of the Tragedy of Duscur.

“Glenn was such a good swordsman. How did this happen?”

Lord Rodrigue shrugged, and his voice sounded as cold as a Fraldarius winter. “It was a surprise attack. We all should have been better prepared. You can rest assured I will make sure tactics are integrated into your training regimen from now on. We can’t afford you to make the same mistake in future when you’re defending Dimitri.”

“Do you think Glenn was... scared at the end?”

“That’s not something you think about when you’re protecting the royal family,” Lord Rodrigue said sternly. “He died like a true knight. That’s what honor means for us, as shields for the King. It will be your task now that your brother is gone, and I will make sure you’re worthy of it when Dimitri ascends the throne.”

His father’s words felt like a knife cutting out his heart. Taking Glenn’s place, just like that? Like his brother had never existed, or hadn’t mattered other than as a utility for the royal family?

“You want me to just be happy with dying for Dimitri?” Felix demanded, unable to rein in his shock and anger. “Is that what you’re saying? That Glenn’s life doesn’t matter more than… a dog’s?”

“Felix, you’re being unreasonable.”

“ _I’m_ being unreasonable? When you expect me to live my life for someone else, like my own thoughts and feelings don’t matter? Is that all you think Glenn and I are, sacrifices to House Blaiddyd’s whims?!”

Lord Rodrigue made a sound of disgust. Felix felt tears stinging his eyes, from how little he’d truly understood about his father’s expectations, because Glenn had borne the brunt of it. Glenn had been nothing more than a pawn, and now that he was dead, all his father cared about was Dimitri and dead King Lambert. It was disgusting, and he wasn’t going to become the next Glenn, because he would be so strong, no one alive would beat him. And he would do that for himself, not for Lord Rodrigue or Dimitri or anyone else. If he’d somehow been cursed to suffer the deaths of his mother and brother, he’d make damn sure no one else he cared about ever died again.

The years passed, and Felix never felt easy with his old man again. He went to the Officers Academy focused on one thing only: getting stronger. The part of him that had craved contact as a boy seemed to have died with Glenn, although he’d sometimes felt tugs to be more than an empty husk of a human. Those were harder to fight with his inexplicable fascination with one of his Academy classmates, whenever she bounded by in a frenetic orange-haired whirlwind, much like the spells she cast. Then the war came, and his world narrowed down to life and death, and staying just one step faster than his opponent.

Then his father died on Gronder Field, taking a knife strike intended for Dimitri Blaiddyd, boar prince of Faerghus, and departed the world thinking of the debt he’d owed to Dimitri’s long dead father.

* * *

Standing alone, with his best friends flanking him but taking care to keep their distance, Felix watched his father’s coffin being lowered into the ground at Garreg Mach. The boar stood up front with him with the Professor in the middle, like a buffer. Felix felt nothing but empty, watching this last member of his family returned to the earth, knowing he’d never have a chance to hug any of them again, to undo the years of distance, the loneliness that his anger had wrought.

He was too old and jaded now to believe that all of this misfortune was somehow his fault; the world they lived in was harsh and inhospitable. It was only a matter of time before his number was up, and his bones would join the rest of his family in the earth. Until then, he would fight until he couldn’t take another step.

Despite that conviction, he found himself unable to sleep that night. Hours spent in the training hall had made him tired but hadn’t brought back a single ember of feeling. He felt trapped in numbness that was unending, which his normal triggers couldn’t bypass—even the boar apologizing to him for Lord Rodrigue’s death hadn’t brought on the normal paroxysms of disgust and fury. The emptiness in his soul stretched out before him, bleaker than a savannah in the dead of winter.

Felix left the training grounds when the moon was high in the sky and the monastery was quiet except for the occasional muffled exchange between guards on duty. He was tired, but found himself wandering aimlessly around the grounds in the dark, his mind blank but driven by some kind of unsettling energy that wouldn’t leave. He walked for a long time, winding his way through the monastery until at last he found himself at the end of the dock, staring into the dark depths of the fishing pond.

That’s where Annette Fantine Dominic found him.

“There you are!” she said, startling him from his dark thoughts.

Felix froze, and made himself turn around to meet her concerned gaze. Her blue eyes seemed wide in her face, reflecting the moonlight. He couldn’t reply, his thoughts a scattered jumble in his mind.

“I— we were all worried about you,” Annette said, fidgeting with her short cape. “And no one had seen you for hours, and… um...”

“Well, now you’ve seen me,” he said, feeling like his voice was stiff from disuse. “You can tell Sylvain and Ingrid that I’m still breathing.”

If he’d thought that would send her scurrying away, he was wrong. Annette crossed the dock and stood in front of him, head tilted upwards so the moonlight illuminated her face, starkly defining each freckle. Her cheeks tinged pink under his regard.

“I wanted to say how sorry I am,” she said nervously. “I know that you and your father… well, you got on with him about like I do with mine. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

Felix felt the stirring of some kind of emotion, but it wasn’t anger. He shoved it away.

“I’m used to it now. But thank you.”

“Oh… because of Duscur?”

Annette was nothing if not persistent; one of the things he liked best about her. Perhaps that was why he heard some truths spilling out of his lips he’d hidden even from himself.

“That, and my mother when I was eight,” he said. “Each one of them gone before I had a chance to think about what I’d want my last words to them to be. I honestly feel nothing right now.”

“That’s horrible how much loss you’ve had,” she said, eyes slanting in sympathy. “All three of them gone, and you never once got to say goodbye? Not even a last hug?”

Felix shrugged. Her words made him aware of chinks in the numbness, allowing emotion to creep in.

Annette made an odd sound in her throat, and her eyes seemed shiny in the light. “That’s just so…”

She launched her arms around his chest, burying her head against his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Felix,” she craned her head up to look at him. “I’ll be your stand-in, if you want. I know I can’t replace them, but I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

Felix gaped at her. The numbness disappeared under a rush of panic that froze him like a statue. He was flooded with emotion, for everything he’d lost, for the firebrand in his arms who cared so much about his loneliness that she offered him her own comfort.

Annette moved to pull away and he grabbed onto her shoulders, holding her close, like she’d become his lifeline and he would drown if she left.

Annette’s body relaxed against him, and she leaned her cheek above his racing heart. Felix buried his face against her hair, trying to stave off his grief, but it was a losing battle. His throat was choked with unshed tears, and they wouldn’t budge, until Annette began to sing. It was an old Faerghian folk song his mother was fond of singing, especially when knee deep in her garden.

The dam in him broke, and he silently cried into her hair. Annette cuddled closer, and reached up to stroke his hair, humming the tune over and over, allowing him to mourn without words.

This was the first time Felix had hugged Annette Fantine Dominic. And he vowed it wouldn’t be the last, because he wasn’t ever letting her go.


End file.
